


my crown is called contentment

by Fahye



Category: Any Old Diamonds - K.J. Charles
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 22:10:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17712545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fahye/pseuds/Fahye
Summary: The oval-cut diamonds were obscenely large, hypnotically bright, calling up a delicious mixture of guilt and wonder and covetousness and unease that Alec kept sipping at like a man unaccustomed to strong spirits.





	my crown is called contentment

**Author's Note:**

> I emerged from this book full of indignation about the OUTRAGEOUS TEASE that was mentioning such a delightful concept and then not including it in the book itself, but you know what, KJ Charles has to leave _something_ for us fan writers to do.
> 
> Title from Shakespeare's Henry VI:
> 
> _My crown is in my heart, not in my head,_   
>  _Nor decked with diamonds and Indian stones,_   
>  _Nor to be seen; my crown is called contentment;_   
>  _A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy._
> 
> (You have no idea how close it came to being titled "A kiss on the hand (may be quite Continental)". Happily for us all, I refrained.)
> 
> ***

Alec had rather assumed the idea was hyperbole when it first emerged from Jerry's mouth. Blisteringly arousing hyperbole, yes, but still--a fellow might say all sorts of things when he had his prick buried in one's arse. Jerry had a tendency to growl wonderful, terrifying, mind-melting things when they were fucking; things that Alec had no intention of ever holding him to. He did not actually expect Jerry to steal him the Crown Jewels, or to keep him tied to a bed for three days straight, or to parade him stark naked through Hyde Park on a leash _so all the other toffs know that the best of them belongs to me._

The thing was…

...in this _particular_ case...

...well, Jerry did _have_ the diamonds, after all.

And as he'd pointed out, they were rather too hot to hand off to his fence until the entire scandalous Castle Speight affair had been displaced by fresher gossip. Lane--Vane--had his opals, and Jerry had the rest of the Duchess's jewels safely stashed away. 

Alec shifted on the bed. It was a warm enough night that his bare skin had no reason to prickle and goosepimple from fingertip to shoulder, navel to knees, and yet it did. Jerry's instructions had been the opposite of ambiguous. _Clean yourself thoroughly. Put these on. These, and nothing else. Get on the bed, and wait for me._

One of the bracelet clasps had given Alec some trouble, but he'd managed in the end.

Jerry had never bothered to furnish his place with anything more than plain, sensible pieces. The main item of decoration, here in the bedroom, was one of Alec's own drawings, simply framed: a cleaned-up version of an illustration he'd done when he was hoping for the Shakespeare job. Prospero, calling up a shipwreck, standing with staff raised on a rocky outcropping, directing his power out to sea. 

Alec had made some teasing comments about how intolerable Jerry would be if his love of control was enhanced by sorcerous abilities. Jerry had smiled his devil's smile into Alec's neck and whispered, _spirits to enforce, art to enchant,_ and Alec had rather lost track of things after that. 

Tonight there was a new piece of furniture in the room. The plain oval glass on the dresser had been eclipsed by a full-length standing mirror. Alec could see pieces of himself in both of them, teasing slopes of pale shoulder or bent knee, the burnished gleam of his hair, the dance of anticipation that played at the corner of his lips. And the jewels. 

He'd decided against all of the rings but one, in the end. Most were too small, or else had settings designed to show off the size of the jewel, which might cause damage to tender skin if the wearer were to forget himself--and Jerry had a gift for making him do exactly that. He'd slipped one onto the smallest finger of his left hand: a band of tiny diamonds alternating with sapphires, on gleaming silver. No sharp edges. A sly flash, when he moved his hand into the light.

A bracelet adorned each wrist, both clasp-fastened rather than bangle style. One was an intricate, modern, leafy style of thing, silver set with tiny diamonds curled around seed pearls. The other, Alec kept lifting his wrist to look at; kept feeling the heaviness of it as it slid to its stopping-point on his arm, then slid down to his hand as he tilted it the other way. Then back. He felt more than a little foolish, but there was nobody in the room to see him do it. And the oval-cut diamonds were obscenely large, hypnotically bright, calling up a delicious mixture of guilt and wonder and covetousness and unease that Alec kept sipping at like a man unaccustomed to strong spirits. 

The necklace was snug, a layered collar with the same leafy swirl as the thinner bracelet, punctuated with bursts of diamond flowers. It lay heavy and warm on Alec's neck and his pulse beat against it.

He'd nearly ignored the coronet entirely, it was so clearly designed for a young woman's head, but found his fingers returning to it in the selection that Jerry had laid out. It had been the last thing he snatched up, and he was half convinced he was wearing it improperly. 

The other half of him, which by now knew Jerry Crozier's tastes and weaknesses very well indeed, hummed in pleasurable anticipation with every glimpse of the diamonds and emeralds peeking through Alec's hair.

Footsteps on the stairs, and approaching. Alec sat up further and bent one knee to tuck his foot in close beneath him. Untucked it. His heart was beating faster and suddenly all his quiet pleasure flew out the window to be replaced by an absurd consciousness of every single limb. He was meant to look decorative. What if he looked foolish? What was he doing with his shoulders? What did he _usually_ do with his shoulders?

It didn't matter, he told himself firmly, as the door to the bedroom opened. Jerry would take care of everything. Jerry would tell Alec exactly what was required of him, and Alec would do it.

Jerry, stopping dead two paces inside the room, said a great big lot of nothing. His lips parted and his eyebrows did one of their tricky, startled dances: arching high and then plunging down, then wavering themselves into a thick line that was nearly bemused. He was neatly but not extravagantly dressed, playing neither the fop nor the lord tonight. He could have been any sober, hard-working office clerk in London--except that he wasn't. He was a thief and a scoundrel and he was Alec's, and he was looking at Alec as though he wanted to serve him with cream and sugar.

Alec, cheeks surging with colour, tried for a smile.

"Jesus Christ," Jerry muttered. "And here I thought I'd prepared myself for the sight of you."

His gaze, dark and intent, traversed Alec's body. Alec could nearly feel it, like a piece of silk dragged over the skin. One wrist--up the arm to the neck--a flash of something in those ravenous eyes, lingering on the necklace. Down the other arm. And then a leap, the silk given a flick, to the coronet.

Under Jerry's regard Alec felt a throb of blood as his cock thickened on his thigh. Jerry's eyes fell to it at once, then raised again, and he licked his lips.

"Damn, you're something," said Jerry, heartfelt and entirely the everyday Jerry that Alec loved. They shared a glance of complete understanding before Jerry's expression changed, and Alec's stomach swooped in reflexive response. Jerry's next words came out close to a purr. "Well, Lord Alexander? How do you like yourself, decked out in my spoils?"

His dark leer made it plain that Alec himself, or rather Lord Alexander, was also to be counted amongst those spoils. Alec relaxed and abandoned all care for what his shoulders were doing; he let his head duck and toyed with a fold of the bedclothes, as though Lord Alexander were not entirely at ease in this situation. 

"It hardly matters what I think, does it?"

"No, it doesn't." The calm, nearly dismissive authority sent heat all the way to Alec's toes. "You're here for me to enjoy. Now be quiet and let me do so."

Jerry walked a slow circle around the bed, examining Alec from a close distance. He raised his eyebrows admiringly at the sight of the oval-drop bracelet, and touched one of its jewels with expert delicacy. Alec felt the touch as though it had been on his bare wrist. 

"Very nice," was Jerry's verdict at the end of his circuit. He was inspecting the coronet now, his air of professional interest punctuated with casually possessive tugs of Alec's hair. "I wouldn't have expected this of you, my lord, when we began this endeavour."

Alec narrowly kept himself from murmuring, _Neither would I._

"I suppose I should congratulate myself on my taste," Jerry went on, musingly. "You're not the first weak, spoiled toff I've kept in line with a good hard fucking, but you've proved far more useful than most."

Most of Alec knew that this was fanciful nonsense of the highest order, but the part of him sinking into the role gave a cry of sullen, jealous complaint. He turned his cheek into Jerry's fingers when they stayed across his face, burning to prove himself, to be what Jerry needed so that Jerry would never tire of him. Never tire of using him exactly as he longed to be used. 

Seeming to read his thoughts, Jerry said, "I think I'll keep you, Lord Alexander. I'm not of a mind to share you with anyone else. You'll stay right here where I can take my pleasure on you, again and again, whenever I wish. A reminder of my triumph."

His thumb rubbed Alec's mouth. His fingers slid around to Alec's nape and down, until the tips of them dipped into the slight gap between skin and necklace. It pulled the metal uncomfortably tight at the front of Alec's neck. He had no trouble breathing, but was even more acutely aware of the pressure of it as he swallowed. 

"And you'll do just as I say."

Alec nodded, mouth dry. His cock was almost fully hard now. Jerry's fingers dug in harder, though at the same time his thumb whispered a caress over Alec's cheekbone and Jerry's gaze seemed stuck on Alec's mouth.

"Just as I want."

"Yes," whispered Alec.

What Jerry wanted first was to drag Alec up into a kneeling position, and kiss Alec until Alec was panting. He kept his hands on Alec's face and jaw; Alec clutched at Jerry's waist, shuddering at the constant reminder that Jerry was still fully clothed and he was wearing nothing but a prince's ransom in jewels.

"Yes," Jerry breathed against his lips. "That's what you're here for. That eager mouth of yours, my lordling. I think I'll have it with my prick next."

And God, God, that was even worse. Even better. Jerry freed his cock exactly enough to feed it between Alec's lips, and growled approvingly when Alec set his hands on the plain wool that hugged Jerry’s arse. He worked hard with lips and tongue, concentrating. It was only when Jerry directed him to hold still, and began to fuck Alec's mouth with slow shallow thrusts, that Alec remembered the mirror. 

The sight--himself all pale skin seated on the bed's edge, Jerry clothed but for the jut of his glistening cock--was breathtakingly lewd. Perhaps even more so for the fact that Alec could see only a blurred slice of them, from this angle, out of the corner of his eye. A tantalising glimpse, like a peep-show, or an illustration done in murky cross-hatching.

Jerry moaned and Alec returned his full attention to the man above him. To the hot length gliding on his tongue, requiring an effort not to gag. To the way Jerry's face twisted when Alec glanced up at him. 

"Christ," Jerry hissed, "Alec, you're a wonder--" and pulled away, sudden enough to leave Alec's mouth gaping with the absence of him. 

Alec swallowed a few times and touched the corner of his jaw where it had begun to ache. He made a rapid decision and said, with a stab at petulance, "Who's Alec?"

Jerry blinked, then grinned. "Do I need to find you a third persona? _Lord_ Alec? Another lazy aristocrat, I shouldn't wonder."

Alec laughed and adjusted the fall of the necklace, answering Jerry's silent query as to his welfare with a nod. "Lord Alec needs a chance to prove himself," Alec said. "To be shown some of the world."

"I'm not here to be obliging," said Jerry, but his tone roughened like tree bark, and Alec found his own hand halfway to his cock before he snatched it away. That won him a slow nod and, gratifyingly, Jerry squeezing the base of his own cock as if his composure were imperilled. Jerry was hard and wet from Alec's mouth. "On your stomach," Jerry ordered. "Now."

Alec obeyed. Jerry took hold of his feet and moved them apart, and Alec's heart gave a couple of thuds: half alarm, half delight. 

"Hm. I should have stolen you some anklets in Indian silver," Jerry said. "And a chain-belt. Fuck, that would look good. Temp had his eye on one in an antique jewellers' shop, once. Beaten-gold panels engraved and set with emeralds. It'd look perfect, against your skin. With the ends of it trailing down past the clasp…" a single finger, down the cleft of Alec's arse, and Alec's breath caught "...to here. Right here."

At the first rough, claiming stroke of Jerry's tongue, Alec let out a whimpering sound that he would have to pretend later was Lord Alexander, but it wasn't--it was entirely him. Every one of his muscles turned rapidly to water, until he couldn't have pushed himself up if he tried. He could do nothing but lie there, sprawled out like a prize, face turned towards a pillow so he could bite the corner of it when he felt like shouting, Jerry's large hands parting his buttocks for better access of his greedy mouth. Alec was awash with pleasure, forgetting who he was meant to be. His hips writhed in futile little jerks, trying to find leverage to work his cock against the bed. 

A stinging slap made Alec yelp.

"Hold still," Jerry growled. "You'll come when I say you can."

Alec let out a silent, grateful sob of a breath and squeezed his eyes shut against the pillow. He stilled his hips. Jerry rewarded him with the brisk rub of his palm over the place where the slap had warmed Alec's skin, and then resumed his activities. He breached Alec's tight hole with slow determined fucks of his tongue, and Alec choked and shook as heat unfurled up his spine. To know a man's pleasures was to hold him in the palm of one's hand. Alec could have been a fucking gold chess piece for all he cared, pawn or king or anything in between, closed tight in Jerry's fingers, never to be released.

"Jerry," Alec pleaded weakly. " _Jerry_." One of the dictums had to be disobeyed, at this point: it was speak or spend, and Alec already knew which he was more likely to be forgiven for.

Jerry drew away and Alec, after a struggle to collect the syllabub of his limbs, rolled onto his back. The mere change in the position of his straining cock made him hiss. 

There was nothing of the First Villain to Jerry's expression: he looked halfway to wrecked, his hair mussed and his eyes adoring. Alec fought his breathing back to normal and watched Jerry fumble with the fastenings of his own clothes. He drank in the emergence of Jerry's slim hips and sinewy arms. Without being told, he understood this was a pause in the game. 

When all Jerry's clothes were tossed aside, Alec reached out a hand and pulled his lover into his arms, and for a few moments of urgent, messy kissing, all the playful roles fell away. Alec barely noted the scratch of priceless ornaments at his wrists and neck, and was aware of the coronet only as it began to slip askew when he rolled atop Jerry and kissed him more deeply, glorying in the friction of skin against skin. He'd rather have five minutes of the scrape of Jerry's jaw against his, and the light of affection in Jerry's eyes, than five hours spent enjoying the glide and gleam of a bracelet worth more than this house. 

Jewels didn't _matter_ , after all; no more than a name did. A rose by any other. Shakespeare intruding again. In this pause they were simply Jerry and Alec, who had found one another under wildly unlikely circumstances, and who had managed to hold onto one another despite lies and illegalities and the danger of being who they were, and loving as they loved.

"All right," Jerry breathed, presently. "I said I'd have you in nothing but diamonds, and I intend to."

He pulled Alec with him off the bed. Alec took a moment to adjust the jewellery when Jerry went to the dresser for oil. He stood in front of the mirror, where Jerry had laid down a thick rug that Alec thought he recognised from one of the other rooms in the house. There was something near otherworldly about his reflection. Hectic cheeks and a lip bitten and kissed to redness. Dripping with jewels like a fairy prince above the waist; cock curving toward his stomach, obscenely hard and needy, beneath it.

Jerry's arm slid across his chest, Jerry's cock nudged up against him, and Alec turned his head to drop a kiss on Jerry's jaw. He could smell the remnants of cologne and the deep scent of Jerry's body. 

"Not to complain," Alec said, "but you're lucky my knees are still keeping me upright, after all that, and I don't fancy my chances of bracing myself on the frame of that mirror."

"Alec, my dear Alec." Jerry met his eyes in the mirror, dark and wicked and compelling. "Fear not. Everything is in hand."

And by everything he meant, _oh_ , Alec himself, as his slicked hand took hold of Alec's cock and gave it a single firm squeeze. 

"I want your arse aching for the rest of this week," Jerry said, conversational. He released Alec and rubbed the oiled fingers over his hole instead, then dipped in: two at once, a confident pressure that made Alec rise onto his toes. "I want you to remember this with every fucking step you take."

"Yes. God," Alec whispered. "Please." He felt like a tree buffeted by wind. He was trapped between Jerry's arm and Jerry's expertly twisting fingers, his world shrinking to the tight heat of his drawn-up balls and the way his cock leaked and bobbed. His legs shook.

"However, I'd rather you _didn't_ knock yourself silly on my mirror," said Jerry. He removed his fingers and pulled Alec down to the rug instead, both of them kneeling up and still facing the glass. Then he guided Alec back and gently down onto his cock; Alec bit back a strangled moan as the head slid into him, the stretch noticeable and aching and utterly perfect despite the work of Jerry's tongue and fingers. "Shit," Jerry swore. His hands tightened; one on Alec's thigh, the other once again around his chest. 

Then Jerry pulled Alec the rest of the way onto him in one firm, merciless shove, and Alec's breath left him in a soundless wail.

"Look at yourself," said Jerry, harsh. "Alec. Open your eyes and look."

Alec hadn't been aware of closing them, but he did as directed. Then he couldn't drag his eyes from the sight. Jerry's expression was caught between savage and wondering, tipping further towards the former with every upwards shove of his hips. He held Alec tight, pulling him down onto his cock every time, setting a merciless pace. _Unrelenting_ , Alec thought, a bright splash of memory. He felt like his body was remaking itself, a tailored fit to Jerry's, a glove woven of pure pleasure. He put his hands loosely to Jerry's thighs on each side to remind himself not to touch his own cock, where all the nerves in his body seemed to be congregating and screaming their need. The action pushed his chest out, as though he were showing off the necklace. As though Alec were no more than an object, a frame for the lovely things that Jerry had stolen.

Jerry was true to his word: he had everything under control, had Alec held completely in place. There was nothing Alec could do but take it--loll his head back on Jerry's neck and watch himself be mastered in the mirror. The patchy flush of his skin. The sweat of his brow, where his hair was beginning to stick. The light winking in the jewels as he moved. The hard line of his untouched prick between his legs, irrefutable evidence that he enjoyed nothing more than being taken in this manner.

"God, Alec. You'll be the death of me," Jerry gasped. Their eyes met in the glass; Alec tried to put mute pleading into his gaze, and Jerry swore. "Shouldn't let you wear a stitch of--clothes--again. You're perfect. Like this. _Look_."

Alec was looking. He was sinking so deep into the wonderful pool of not-thinking, of being only what Jerry wanted, that for a moment it felt like he was in Jerry's mind. Seeing himself through Jerry's eyes. A fair debauched thing, desirable and wonderful, of _course_ Jerry wanted to claim him, to keep him forever--

"Jerry," he gasped, "I, I'm--" and was prepared to be told _no_ , and to try, God, _somehow_ , to stop himself. But Jerry's nails scraped Alec's chest and Jerry snarled, "Just like this, my Alec, _now_ ," and Alec came in a mind-blanking rush, without so much as a stroke or a grip on his cock, spurting obscenely onto the rug before them. 

Alec shook through it and then sagged back, settling onto Jerry's lap. Jerry's prick was still hard inside Alec, still buried to the hilt. Alec tried to scoop together a question, or an offer, and then let it go with a rush of relief. He didn't have to make any decisions. Jerry would do exactly as he wanted in order to take his own pleasure.

For a minute or so Jerry seemed content to let Alec catch his breath; to reach around and gently caress Alec's softening cock, spreading the wetness of his spend around the sensitive head, murmuring how filthy Alec looked.

Then he pulled out, carefully--Alec groaned through his teeth--and directed Alec off him and forward. No wonder. Jerry's thighs must have been aching, from the pace he'd set. He arranged Alec with knees bent and hips raised, and a commanding hand between his shoulder blades pressed Alec's chest to the floor. 

The necklace dug into Alec's skin. He couldn't see himself any more--his head was turned to one side, cheek against the soft scratch of the rug--but Jerry would be able to. Jerry would see the curve of Alec's back, the glint of diamonds at his neck, and the place where his prick pressed at the cleft of Alec's arse.

"Worth a fortune, you are," Jerry said. His voice cracked; he must have been close, must have been holding himself together with spit and string. "And _mine._ " 

He slid home again on the word, one long stroke into Alec's welcoming body. No burn at all, this time. Just a jolt of desire and closeness that made Alec's hands curl and his heart shove gladly at his ribs, trying to knock a hole in the floor. 

It only took a few hard thrusts, Jerry gripping Alec's hips, before Jerry hissed, " _Fuck_ ," and went still, bowed forward over Alec, his forehead just touching Alec's spine. 

After they'd separated, helped one another to their feet, and wiped down, they climbed back into the bed. Alec removed the coronet and set it carefully aside, wincing. The ends of it were starting to dig in and cause an ache in his head. There was a matching, though much more pleasurable, ache lower down; he would indeed be feeling it when he walked, for a day or two at least. 

"Show us that ring," Jerry said. "I didn't get a good look at it."

Alec held out his hand obligingly. Jerry tugged the ring off Alec's finger and turned it to and fro. Concentration always suited Jerry. He would need only a jeweller's loupe--and, admittedly, a lot more clothing--to look perfectly at home in the most exclusive shop on Bond Street.

"Ah, it's the sapphires. Nice piece," Jerry said.

"I like it," Alec said. "It's less gaudy than the rest. Less...obvious."

Jerry grinned at him. "You bloody artist, Alec. Obvious was the _point_."

Alec smiled. "I know."

Another thoughtful caress of the ring. "You're right. There are plenty of rings like this in the world," Jerry said. "And it's not too glaringly feminine, either. You could probably wear it every day without anyone giving it a second glance."

Jerry took hold of Alec's finger and slid the ring back into place, carefully. A warm tingle that had almost nothing to do with sex spread across Alec's hand and up his arm. It intensified when Jerry didn't release his hand, and instead lifted it to his mouth, dropping a fast kiss on that finger. 

Alec's pulse, which had returned to a normal rate, picked up its pace again. Names were just words, and words were like names. You could disregard them. Truth was in a person's actions, and for a self-avowed hardened criminal, Jerry Crozier had a habit of acting in ways that set Alec's heart singing. To make him believe himself loved, when he'd thought that belief wrung out of him years ago.

"Perhaps I will," Alec said.


End file.
